Sitting in Dilyara Khanum’s Tatar inn, high above the valley, under the stone sphinxes, from my window I see the sunny valley. Smokes of litter burning rise, the golden hour caresses through the poplars, like once, long time ago in Csömör, I can hear the muezzin’s song from the old mosque and the lowing of the cows pasturing under the stone sphinxes.

We go down to the city with Lloyd, we still have three hours before I must go to the airport in Simferopol for my fellow travelers for the next week. We descend among decaying Tatar houses to the Khan’s Palace, then climb up to Sevastopol Street’s Karaim Synagogue, the muezzin is singing again, sleepy dogs spy on us. A small kitten joins us in our walk, eagerly trotting behind us along the long road, I do not even know where he left us behind.